When I began reading through these games, I began to get a good feel for just what can be accomplished in just two pages or, more specifically, the front and back of a single page. In most cases, a predefined story is outlined, with some flexibility in structure, some parts that can be acted out and decided by the players, and often, a final section where, based on the players' decisions and, perhaps some form of randomizers, such as dice or cards, the outcome is determined. Some of the games include a wrap-up at the end where the players describe the further ramification of those actions. This doesn't even feel like an RPG, based on my experience of them to date. That led me to re-examine the games I've played before to try to determine why.
At first, I wanted to say that the entries in this book weren't even games. But, as I thought about it, most of them fit the definition of game moreso than most tabletop RPGs. Dungeons & Dragons, while having formal rules and ways to measure the success of actions, is more "play" than "game," in that there is no real "end" to the game. Your character can die in ways from which they can't come back, but the player can simply roll a new character. You can play through an entire campaign, but when the campaign is completed, there's no reason for that to be the end of the game; you can opt to continue play and go on more adventures. By contrast, these are games, with a beginning, a middle and an end. There is a point in each of these games that the game has been completed and you are done. MMORPGs are much like tabletop RPGs in this respect. Old-school single-player computer-based role-playing games have definitive ends, so they are the closest to what is to be found in the book, but those have much more content than the two-pagers found here.
Aside from the game mechanics, however, The Ultimate Micro-RPG Book is also different from other role-playing games that I've played in its the desire to bend over backwards to make the space between the covers of the book into a "safe space" for all. This includes the concept of the "X-Card," which is a mechanism used to stop play and for a player to identify content that causes them stress, so that it may be removed from the game and avoided. Personally, I think a roleplaying game would be the ideal place to explore topics that make you feel uncomfortable, because the dragon's not actually going to kill you... it's going to kill your character. As the player, you're in no real harm. But, some people might say that using an RPG as a way to explore uncomfortable situations would make it feel too much like a tool for group therapy - and who would want to do that?
Answer? Pretty much anyone involved in this collection of games. Almost every single one comes across as touchy-feely, hand-holding, and seem designed to coddle those who have rejected the concept of heteronormalcy, genetically-assigned traits and select parts of speech in a desire for a fantasy world where it's okay to identify as robotkind and to require people to only refer to them in first person. The games (or, in some cases, exercises) are overly concerned about offending anyone and, for some of them, that's about it.
Take for example, "Annedale-by-Sea," a "game" in which two players assume the roles of two specific people briefly described in the text, and actually write and send letters in the mail to each other as their characters... while avoiding certain topics including one of the characters' "deadname"... which is a term I had to look up and means the abandoned birth name when a person reassigns (or, presumably transidentifies) their gender. Is there role-playing involved? Sure, there are two characters to choose from and you play the role of that person in writing correspondence. Is it a game? Well, there's no scoring mechanism and the activity continues until someone decided to end it ...and there is a suggested ending, but it's simply writing one last letter and is sort of optional, so... no? It could be argued that it's a "role-playing" activity, but I would classify it as a creative writing exercise.
Several other of the included "games" seem like they, too, are really more improvisational or creative writing group exercises. Is that a bad thing? Not in and of itself, but when you wrap them all up in a book and then you call the book a collection of roleplaying games, instead of creative writing exercises, then it's misleading. I feel like a lot of people reading the title, "The Ultimate Micro-RPG Book: 40 Fast, Easy, and Fun Tabletop Games" will expect, well, tabletop games. (Whereas "Annedale-by-Sea" fails not only the "game" definition, but also the "tabletop" part.)
In striving to be inclusive of those typically marginalized, the book could swing the other way into making binary "cis" players uncomfortable. For example, those who are easily offended by people going out of the way to avoid easily offending the easily offended might find themselves offended by the idea of pet dogs having preferred pronouns. Meanwhile, one of the contained games (What Our Bodies Tell Us) involves revealing as much skin as you feel comfortable with and painting on your own body and the bodies of the other players. That one felt like a game suggested by a pervy father hosting a sleepover. Maybe I'm reading something into it? Could be. In the "Ending the Game" section, that one suggests, "Consider cleaning up together." Okay, then. (Cue porn music)
I don't know that any one person (and/or their group(s) of friends) will want to play every game in this book, but if you did, you'd need paper, index cards, pens or pencils, a deck of standard playing cards, a deck of tarot cards, dice (two four-sided, up to 36 six-sided*, two eight-sided, one 10-sided, and 7 twenty-sided dice), envelopes, stamps, a hat, a coin, straws (up to 5), assorted markers, chalkboard or whiteboard and chalk or dry-erase markers, a way to play different types of music, a timer and, four paperclips, skin friendly paint or markers or other art supplies, and optionally a corkboard and pins and props to represent a microphone. That having been said, with just paper, pencil or pens and a slew of six-sided dice, you could play 22 of the games. In fact, with one weird trick (link below**), you could use a d6 to come up with fair rolls of dice other than just a d6, upping your number of playable games to 26. With the addition of a standard deck of cards, the count becomes 25 without the trick and 29 with it.
The name and the cover of The Ultimate Micro-RPG Book both make it something that sounds like it would be of interest to me. However, while I readily admit that going "too far" to make people feel "safe" and allowing people to identify as being something other than a binary, human individual from the present makes me uncomfortable and has me reaching for my X-Card, I need to point out that the entries in this book that I dislike fail for their own reasons, completely aside from gender fluidity. As I mentioned above, some aren't tabletop-based, some aren't games and some are simply creative writing exercises. Additionally, some have themes that are of no interest to me, which is to be expected - it's doubtful that any one person will be interested in the themes of all of the entries - but when one of the appealing aspects of the collection is the quantity of entries, that's worth considering. "You Were Never Really Here" claims to require a cork board or magnetic board, but doesn't mention it anywhere in the description of playing the game. It literally has players tying string around their wrists to connect the players. Upon noticing the mention of the "cork board to pin/magnetize string to," I realized that at some point the intent was for the gameplay to be done on a connection board, much like you might see in a police/detective show, where connections between individuals are connected on the board with a web of string or yarn. That sounds more interesting to me than tying myself to other players sitting across a table and changes the game to something I might want to play. I don't understand how the game evolved into this in-between version, but I feel like it suffers from a lack of editing.
The layout of many of the games leaves something to be desired. While all of the games have the same group of information specified, including number of players, playing time, complexity, items needed, Goal, Genre, Tone, Format and Content, the layout of each game is different, meaning that some of them have this information easily visible in separated little sections in a block on the side, while others have all of these things mashed together one after the other without line breaks somewhere else on the page. Some of the games are written in black text over dark backgrounds, making them more difficult to read, as well. That being said, most of the games, even the games I don't find appealing, seemed to describe an entire, coherent activity or experience.
My general view of most of the games in this collection is that they would not serve as a replacement or alternative for the TTRPG experiences I would play with a group of my friends. For example, if I showed up for a D&D session for a pivotal part of a campaign and one of the players was called away on a work emergency, I don't see us pulling this book out and deciding to take off as much of our clothing as we're comfortable with and painting each others' bodies or sitting around the table and tying our wrists together. Or, for that matter, performing improv or while one plays accompanying music (but if we did, I call DJ!). These activities are just fundamentally different from TTRPGs I'm familiar with, where I would prefer them to be much closer to that experience.
Reading The Ultimate Micro-RPG Book with the expectation of actually finding 40 Fast, Easy, and Fun Tabletop Games left me a bit disappointed and made me wonder if more traditional TTRPG experiences could be achieved in such a short format. Even if they weren't full games in and of themselves, but side-quests or interpersonal "team building" exercises where you can bring existing characters from your favorite TTRPG and have them interact to deepen the role-playing aspects of what can sometimes become a more mechanics-driven game. Or, perhaps, a short role-playing activity that affects the creation of a richly back-storied thieves guild or wizard's academy that could, then, be worked into a larger, more mechanically-structured mainstream TTRPG. That was more what I was hoping for.
If you're in search of quick, easy to play Tabletop Roleplaying games and you realize that a two-page game isn't going to be the next Dungeons & Dragons, Pathfinder, Mechwarrior, or the Marvel Role-Playing Game, then expect around three to five of those to be found within this book, depending on your personal definition of table top RPGs. If you also are interested in creative writing exercises and have at least a passing interest in improvisation (and have friends with the same interest), then there may be more content of value to you. The more "out there" entries have you painting on each other's bodies or tying yourself to the other players with string. These don't seem to be in the same realm as any TTRPGs I've played before, but your mileage may vary. In the end, I recommend reading through this book in a brick-and-mortar shop before buying it, if you find you're still interested in the book. I can't really recommend it in good faith as a collection or TTRPG games, but would might recommend it to a friend looking for some unique creative writing and improv exercises.
*up to 36d6 would be ideal. You can always reroll a single d6 as many times as needed, but the game that requires the greatest number of six sided dice in this collection, "A Machine Larger than You," suggests 6d6 for the up to 6 players.
